Joe Biden On Iraq: Staying Is "Killing Us"

Senator Joe Biden continued to press his argument against the administration's strategy on Iraq across the TV dial this morning. On the Today Show, he assailed both the cost of the Iraq war, the lack of a plan forward, and the fact that there seems to be "no end in sight." "The costs of staying are immense," Biden told Today host Matt Lauer, "It's killing us."

LAUER: You didn't wait to hear from General Petraeus last week. You said the surge is a failure. Yesterday you heard him say the progress is real but it's fragile and reversible. Did he say anything yesterday that changed your mind?

BIDEN: No. Look, what I said was that the military side of the surge works. It's brought down violence. But we went from drowning to treading water. And now we're having 30 to 40 Americans die a month, 225 a month wounded. and we're spending $3 billion a month with no end in sight, Matt. They have no plan how to get down below 140,000. They have no plan how to end this war and they have no political prescription as to how to bring the parties together.

LAUER: In terms of the security improvements that have been made -- General Petraeus laid those out -- with the challenges with the Iraqi government, when he uses those words, "fragile and reversible," Senator, are you okay with the fact that withdrawing troops might take us backwards in Iraq?

BIDEN: No. Look, Matt, we can debate whether or not the cost of drawing down troops will hurt. That's debatable. For example, as many military experts argued if we were to withdraw gradually and more substantially from Iraq, that al Qaeda would be hurt more than if we stayed. I asked yesterday -- I asked our ambassador and I asked Petraeus, where is the greatest threat from al Qaeda, in Afghanistan where we don't have enough troops to fight them, by their own admission, or in Iraq? They said they're more dangerous in Afghanistan. We don't debate the cost of staying, Matt. The costs of staying are immense, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said...it's killing us.

[WATCH.]

Biden went on to correct Lauer's contention that the planned drawdown Petraeus plans will take troop levels below their pre-surge status (they won't - Petraeus plans to stand pat at 10,000 troops over the pre-surge level). He also disputed Lauer's contention that Petraeus' plan seemed "level headed," saying, "It doesn't seem level-headed when you don't have any plan."

Asked to evaluate the performance of the three presidential candidates, Biden told Lauer that he only saw the questions of Barack Obama. He praised the Senator's line of questioning, but continued to withhold any sort of endorsement.

Biden also appeared on The Early Show, Morning Joe, and American Morning.

Comments

[andyboy]

Oil revenues? Oh. We're not sure at this point if there are any.

Why not? Well you'd need bookeepers and auditors and stuff like that there.

We just are not set up for all that. This is war you know. You know the fog and all.

[jakie]

THANK YOU JOE FOR SPEAKING FOR THE AMERICAN YESTERDAY . WE HOPE OBAMA PICKS YOU AS A VICE PRESIDENT CANDIDATE

[andyboy]

WHERE ARE THE OIL REVENUES?

[WhoGetsYourVote]

Joe Biden On Iraq: Staying Is "Killing Us"

So is plagiarism, and Joe Biden knows everything about that.

So is racism, and Joe Biden knows everything about that too, after referring to Obama as "clean and articulate­."

Joe Biden is a blowhard with bad hair plugs.

[BlueBoomer]

WhoGetsYourVote:
You get MY vote for the most complete idiot I've encountered in a while...Yo­u're so full of shit that I may have to fumigate my keyboard just from responding to you.

First, If you knew ANYTHING about anything, you would know that Joe Biden worked in the civil rights movement BEFORE his Senate career began at age 29 (your IQ), and that Barak Obama himself dismissed any suggestion that Senator Biden was racist as clearly not true and unfounded (maybe you missed the debate while you were watching a "pope of the racists" Rev. Wright diatribe).­..

Second, what Senator Biden did TWENTY YEARS AGO was to include a quote from someone he frequently quoted without attributing it to that person, THE EXACT SAME THING THAT BARAK OBAMA DID IN HIS SPEECH THIS SPRING, lifting almost verbatim the words of the governor of Massachusettes (his name escapes me at the moment), without attributio­n...it got about 5 hours mention in the media and was then dismissed as much ado about nothing.

SO, unless you believe in a double standard that punishes the white guy for EXACTLY THE SAME "CRIME" that the black guy is allowed to get away with, the next time you say the word "racist", just LOOK IN THE MIRROR...

The fact that people like you of ANY color are allowed to vote is the main problem with this country...­PLAIN OLD DOWN & DIRTY (as opposed to "clean") STUPIDITY.

[wolf58]

And the point of your post is what? to show all of us that you have no clue therefore you point and call soneone names. So what are you six years old?
For the record Biden has been pretty much on the ball on Iraq unlike so many of the GOP lapdogs who would yell "stay the course" and charge! as they hide under their desk eating thier piece of Ameirican apple pie waving their made in china American flag. I once again call on you keyboard generals who are pro war, pro Bush,who talk nothing but shit to take your sorry ass down and sign up ask for Iraq and show the rest of us that you have the balls to put your money where your mouth is. And if you are to much a coward like so many of the GOP and current adminstration then please go suck on your moma's tit and shut the fuck up. This is from someone who is a vet, who has had family and friends there and who will have more family there in a couple of days. 4027 have died that did not have to. We need to bring them all home now so another family does not have to hear that knock on the door.

[YankeeCanuck]

The plagiarism charge was a swiftboating back in 88.

Biden has worked to combat racism and has been a known champion of human rights.

He's a professor of constituonal law, an expert in foreign policy, and a family man who commutes by train each night from Washington he can to be with his family. He's referenced in books on foreign policy. He's as ethical and thoughtful as they come. Prodigiously knowledgeable-- hint: that's whay he has a lot to say and it is substantial.

All you can comeup with is a flimsy ad hominem attack.Wha­t do you want to be when you grow up?

[JacobSinger]

Shallow, flippant analysis at best.

[fletch1031]

Really? Hair jokes and a 20-year-old reference to a stump speech? That's all you have to hurl at Sen. Biden?

[Grannysue]

Biden is correct, and it's media talking heads like Lauer and others that should all be fired from the top down, they are totally complacent in this mess. They agreed not to show the coffins of our soldiers, they were cheer leaders showing the beginning of 'SHOCK & AWE" over and over, playing to Patriotisim and all those sound bites. They only started to report the real stories after being told by the majority of the American public that enough is enough. Then you have the blow bags like on FAUX NEWS and RUSH LIMPBALLS on their so called "conservative" talk shows telling everyone how wonderful it's going and that if you support the troops you must support this illegitimate WAR.
It's high time the public held the news media to a higher standard. It won't matter to the neocon wingnuts still thinking that McBush is right and this is a just WAR, but the majority of Americans know our country cannot keep this up, what's more patriotic ending this mess and bringing home our over worked troops to their families and keeping our money here to help rebuild our own country or continuing to support a country that has a "budget" surplus while we continue to go bankrupt.

[hartkid]

complicit and complacent. Knew what you meant. News types get erections for war. Makes their jobs easier and all that carnage...

[NelsonR]

Out of all the candidates, this time around, Joe Biden seems the most straight forward and honest elected representative. Yet America doesn't want honesty in Government but rather lying pandering rhetoric of Hillary and warmongering from McCain. Obama sounds good, gives you hope that change can occur but is he real? Million dollar question but what choice have we.

[MrRex]

Exactly, but we had a choice in the primaries but because of the way elections are financed and supported people like Biden get the "bums rush". That and the fact that his "charisma quotient" is high enough to capture the attention span of today's voters made him a loser efore he started. So now we have the incanate of JFK in a slam down with the queen of evil(not my sentiment) hoping to best " 100 more years McCain. As you ended "what choice have we"....now­?

[MB141]

it's too bad about the primaries.­..Joe Biden was the best choice by far of all the candidates, but the country is apparently not prepared to elect someone seriously qualified to the White House...th­ough i wish he would have pushed harder, he definitely had an uphill battle on his hands this year....

[ylpatriot]

indeed.... Biden was my choice... too bad we cant put him on the roster again we really have three bad choices dont we ? How very sad ....

[BlueBoomer]

I have been a fan and ardent support of JOE BIDEN from the start, and I am literally almost brought to tears when I realize we could have had him vs. what we're going to be stuck with...the path not taken...

And HOWARD DEAN and the DNC are significantly responsible for this screwed up primary by virtue of the fact that he/they allowed the media, especially the debate moderators, to IGNORE candidates like BIDEN, DODD, etc... What a disservice to the country...

Maybe it IS time for a viable third party, cause what we've got now sure stinks.

[YankeeCanuck]

Ciao, Blue -- good to hear your voice again. Money, celebrity and a lazy media cut the most qualified candidates from the discussion early on. That's part of the reason there's so little to report except the minutiae of who (and whose supporter) said what. Endlessly.

We have three relatively weak candidates.

We can only hope that prodigiously knowledgeable people like Biden and Dodd play a strong role in the next cabinet.

[MrRex]

And this man wasn't considered "good enough" for the Dems to choose him as a candidate? Maybe he can't lie. That would disqualify him from running for sure!

[HumeSkeptic]

He wasn't disqualified. He couldn't win even a single state and dropped out despite, I am sure, his best efforts.

That said, of course he is a good man.

[rroy]

The gas station down the road raised it's price to $3.50(or $3.499")a gallon this morning.,a­nd China just bought another big block of Treasury notes.
Tell me again General,how we are succeding so happily in Iraq.
While you're doing that the AIPAC Pimp,Joe Lieberman can provide a little background music by humming Hava Nagela.

[fletch1031]

I was with you until the last sentence. There's no need for that kind of talk.

[huffyanika]

This is exactly what I was wanting to hear. It does me good to hear someone saying, 'This is killing us!' And to repeat his comments again and again. It does me good to hear someone being angry about people being killed. Not to mention protesting all the money going away from desperate needs here at home. None of it makes any sense.

(I heard a Congressman, R. from S. Carolina, today praising Petraeus for his work and telling him so proudly how many people in his own family are/were in the military and that his son is or was in Iraq. He believes that 'if we don't get them there they will come here'. This rhetoric is extremely disheartening. Has the word about the war and all its losses and cost to our nation not gotten to South Carolina? Is this man and his familyt suicidal? Or what?)

[Ramus]

That's what they have to tell the soldiers in order to get them to go over there and to get them to stay there..the­y have to believe they are protecting our so-called "freedoms"­..how else would our military motivate them except by lies?

[elr50]

This is killing us? Wish it was killing George Bush.

[IntelligentDesign]

In every sense of that word senator.

[researcher]

as a nation we did not ask forgivness for what we did to the vietnamese so now we pay the price by being in iraq.

the problem is we americans not our politicans. they are only a reflection of us. until we figure that out we will continue to have vietnams and iraqs.

we are a nation of imperialist and many americans are war mongers and dont have a clue they are. the rest of the world sees us for what we are but we make fun of them and in our self rightous pride think we are right.

karma time in america. the iraqis will bleed us in lives and treasure. could not have happened to a more deserving country. a society has karma just like an idividual not as punishment but as lesssons.

will we learn from this lesson. in time how many more illegal wars we do not know. too much money in wars to give them up that easy.

[darcy]

Well said, researcher.

[Mekarri]

I think you are absolutely righ researcher. But anytime you speak the truth about the real problem everyone want to say you are against America. Just because the truth is ugly doesn't mean you can just dismiss it. We as a nation need to take a good long look in the miror. Our lives are worth no more or less than anyone else. Thank you researcher.

[BlueBoomer]

As I said in one of my replies on this thread: the problem is that way too many Americans are JUST PLAIN STUPID...a­nd their votes count just as much as those who pay attention and can employ critical thinking..­. there are just too many of the former and not enough of the latter.

It breaks my heart that JOE BIDEN will not be our president.­..absolute­ly breaks my heart...

Way to go DNC... way to go media... way to go america...

...Way to go further into the morass, that is...

[compassionone]

Wouldn't this be a nice next step:

"The Congress has voted unanimously to cut funding by 1/2 for fighting in Iraq for the remainder of 2008. Gen. Petraeus has been given orders to re-allocate troops and assets based on this new funding. Petraeus will narrow the focus and NOT cut corners in providing solder's with necessary equipment and support to do their job."

[ylpatriot]

and might we say ...... Have we heard the name Bin Laden of late ?????? hell no ....we have been duped America...­.. and will pay a big time penalty ....... What a sad state of affairs.

[hppygrl15]

THERE IS NO EXIT PLAN......­.....

[NotWaldo]

THERE IS NO EXIT PLAN......­.....

Bush never had an exit strategy in Iraq. The plan was :

- to take Saddam out;
- put in place a government the US can control;
- have permanent military bases to intimidate other countries like Iran;
- strike them if necessary;
- make money with Iraqis' oil;
- make a bundle with the reconstruction of Iraq which the US destroyed with great effectiveness during the Gulf War and the illegal invasion of 2003.

The genius in the WH just didn't anticipate the insurgency that EVERY expert on the Middle East predicted. And now, Joe is right, they're killing us!

[afgail]

There IS a plan. The long range U S plan is to keep troops in Iraq as long as there is oil in the Iraqi soil to be exploited. It isn't anymore complicated than that. When Bush and McCain invoke "our vital national interests in the region" that is what they are talking about - purloined Iraqi oil fields.

[highlyamused]

No "exit plan" because there's "no exit planned."
That's been the reality since it started
Why are we surprised?

Now......g­o watch some TV or go to the mall......­.go window shop for that you'll spend that 'stimulus' check on. You leave this important stuff to us leaders...­........we got money to make. Git along now....sho­oo shooo

[Ramus]

The stupid U.S. has really given Osama just what he wanted. We are bankrupting ourselves on this fools errand and creating more young Muslims who hate us every second we continue occupying Iraq.
Osama Bin Laden has won already by wrecking our military and our economy. Of course there are some people who are making a lot of money from this war. Follow the money and you'll know why we are really there.